DENVER — From the moment Jack Hughes scored in overtime to beat Canada on Sunday morning, things got kind of blurry for the three Minnesota Wild players who earned gold medals with Team USA.
MILAN, ITALY – FEBRUARY 22: Jack Hughes #86 and Quinn Hughes #43 of Team United States celebrates following the Men’s Gold Medal match between Canada and the United States on day 16 of the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic games at Milano Santagiulia Ice Hockey Arena on February 22, 2026 in Milan, Italy. (Photo by Elsa/Getty Images)
Back on the ice with the NHL team to prepare for Thursday night’s showdown with division-leading Colorado at Ball Arena, Matt Boldy, Brock Faber and Quinn Hughes said they had no idea what was coming their way after a 2-1 victory over the Canadians in the gold medal game.
After Sunday’s medal ceremony, the team flew from Milan to Miami, where they were picked up by an Air Force plane and taken to Maryland, whence they traveled to Washington and the White House to meet President Donald Trump. Later, they attended Tuesday night’s State of the Union address at the Capitol.
“It was crazy, man, honestly,” Hughes said.
All three were back in Minnesota in time to fly with the team to Denver for their first game NHL game since early February.
“We were flying everywhere,” Hughes said. “We didn’t want it to end. We didn’t want to leave the guys. It was funny, before the last day we were all saying how depressed we were because it was already over, pretty much.”
The American women’s and men’s Olympic gold medals touched off a national celebration, but controversy quickly followed. In a call to the men’s team’s jubilant locker room, the president invited the team to attend the State of the Union address, then joked that he also had to invite the women or he would likely be impeached.
In videos of the call, players can be seen laughing at what has widely been perceived as a misogynistic attempt at humor by the president. Faber, while noting how unequivocally supportive the U.S. men’s and women’s teams have been to one another, said he regrets how those postgame moments unfolded.
“There’s things that obviously were, um, were bad,” he said Thursday. “Unfortunate. Things that you want back. Things in the moment. But at the end of the day, I just wish people could really understand, like, the real love and support we do have for each other and how special it is for both sides.”
Hughes, whose mother Ellen was on staff with the U.S. women’s team, said the perception that the men were anything but supportive of their American counterparts is off-base.
“I think they know that they had our support,” he said, noting that he watched the women’s gold medal game with his brother Jack and former NFL star Tom Brady. “We spent a ton of time with them, honestly. We celebrated with them after we won. So, yeah, I mean, I know they were extremely happy for us when we won, and we were really happy for them.”
After all of that, the Wild’s Olympians had to quickly switch their focus to a pair of road games at Colorado and Utah as the Wild looked to pick up where they left off. The Wild had an 8-1-1 streak going before the three-week break.
“Being able to get here last night with the guys and fly over with them on the plane and everything like that, just to finally have a little bit of time to decompress and hang out with those guys that we haven’t seen in a while was really nice,” Boldy said. “Mentally, and obviously you take care of yourself physically to be able to go tonight. But it’s been pretty special.”
Boldy scored a first-period goal for Team USA in the victory over Canada that gave the American men their first gold medal since the 1980 Miracle On Ice team.
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